Disclosed herein is an apparatus including a peripheral interface port hub and secure thumb device enclosure.
Presently, external peripheral interface ports, such as universal serial bus ports, parallel ports, IEEE 1394 interface ports, and other external peripheral interface ports are used to connect external peripheral devices to printing apparatuses. Such printing apparatuses can include printers, digital front ends for printers, copiers, multifunction printing devices, print servers, and other printing apparatuses. The peripheral devices can include keyboards, computer mice, printers, external hard drives, thumb devices, and other peripheral devices that can be attached to an external peripheral interface port located on a printing apparatus. The thumb devices can include portable flash drives and dongles that include an integrated external peripheral interface port connector and that are typically small enough to be carried in a pocket of a user. A portable flash drive can be used to store and transfer data between computing devices. A dongle can be a hardware key, a hardware token, a security device, or any other portable external peripheral interface port device that can be used to authenticate a piece of software and/or enable capabilities of printing apparatuses. For example, a dongle can include a license key that can enable a target software application, can enable particular features in a target software application, and/or can allow access to features present in a target software application.
Unfortunately, thumb devices that are left attached to a printing apparatus while in use can be easily broken if users bump into the thumb devices. Furthermore, thumb devices can be easily stolen due to their removability and due to their small size. One possible solution to damage and theft is to remove a thumb device from a printing apparatus when the thumb device is not in use. However, removal of the thumb device creates additional problems aside from just the inconvenience of consistently removing the thumb device. One problem is that removing the thumb device leads to loss of the thumb device due to the small size of the device. Another problem is the wear on the thumb device due to repeated docking, undocking, and potential improper storage, which results in damage to the thumb device. A further problem is the fact that the thumb device cannot be removed while it is in use.
These problems become large issues in scenarios where thumb devices, such as dongles, are used to enable essential software features in industrial applications. For example, a dongle can be used to enable print features on a digital front end of a printing system. To allow the print system to continue operation, the dongle must be left in an external peripheral interface port on the digital front end while it is being used. If the dongle is stolen or broken, or if the dongle is removed and lost, immediate attention is required to replace the dongle to continue operation of the printing system. In some industries, hundreds of customer service requests are made each year for replacement dongles and each customer service request can cost the customer thousands of dollars just to replace a misplaced or damaged dongle. Such replacement costs do not even include the cost of days of lost production while awaiting the replacement dongle.
Other problems arise when a customer fraudulently alleges a dongle has been lost or stolen. In such an instance, a provider may provide a replacement dongle even though the customer still has the original operational dongle, which allows an unethical customer to violate terms of their licensing agreement by using dongles on more systems than originally agreed upon. This costs the provider lost profits due to the customer effectively stealing additional unlicensed software. This can also cause legal issues for the provider if the software is licensed from a third party developer and the provider is enabling the unethical customer to violate the agreement between all of the parties by providing the customer with additional unlicensed dongles.
Thus, there is a need for an apparatus having a peripheral interface port hub and secure thumb device enclosure.